When Clarence rang at the ivy-covered porch, and made inquiry for
Mordaunt, he was informed that the latter was in the park, by the
river, where most of his hours during the day-time were spent.

"Shall I send to acquaint him that you are come, sir?" said the
servant.

"No," answered Clarence, "I will leave my horse to one of the grooms,
and stroll down to the river in search of your master."

Suiting the action to the word, he dismounted, consigned his steed to
the groom, and following the direction indicated to him, bent his way
to the "river."

As he descended the hill, the brook (for it did not deserve, though it
received, a higher name) opened enchantingly upon his view. Amidst
the fragrant reed and the wild-flower, still sweet though fading, and
tufts of tedded grass, all of which, when crushed beneath the foot,
sent a mingled tribute to its sparkling waves, the wild stream took
its gladsome course, now contracted by gloomy firs, which, bending
over the water, cast somewhat of their own sadness upon its surface;
now glancing forth from the shade, as it "broke into dimples and
laughed in the sun;" now washing the gnarled and spreading roots of
some lonely ash, which, hanging over it still and droopingly, seemed--
the hermit of the scene--to moralize on its noisy and various
wanderings; now winding round the hill and losing itself at last
amidst thick copses, where day did never more than wink and glimmer,
and where, at night, its waters, brawling through their stony channel,
seemed like a spirit's wail, and harmonized well with the scream of
the gray owl wheeling from her dim retreat, or the moaning and rare